Britain's largest-ever poetry festival, Poetry Parnassus, will take place on the South Bank and feature 205 poets, one from each of the Olympic nations.

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After that, I read everything about England I could get my hands on: geography, geology, architecture, folklore, fiction, place-names, pottery, poetry and plants.

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Others include Seize the Day, a day-long celebration of the art form taking place later in the year that will feature a marathon reading compered by Poetry Please presenter Roger McGough.

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